Is screen time affecting more than kids minds?
Is screen time affecting more than kids minds?
The increased use of screens is probably the biggest change in childhood activity patterns since the introduction of the television 50 years ago. It is likely to have a big impact on children’s health and habits now and throughout their life. The high use of devices in childhood is likely to have a knock on effect later in life with increased risk of; • Obesity • Cardio and metabolic problems • Social and psychological issues • Musculoskeletal problems especially in the neck. Spending numerous hours in a poor neck posture with very little neck movement will make children more vulnerable to neck pain later in life. There is a lot of research emerging that neck and back problems begin in adolescence – hence the importance of exploring prevention in childhood. The strongest predictor of whether you are going to suffer from neck or back pain in the future is if you have already had it, so stopping that first occasion of pain will have a significant impact! The research also suggests: • that children will also grow up with poor gross motor skills • Children who watch more TV or devices then their peers will have weaker bones by aged 20Surveys suggest 2/3 of children aged 0-5 are spending at least 30 min per day on devices.
Australian Department of Health guidelines for screen time suggest that children under 2 have NO screen time.
Please click on the below links for guidelines for Physical activity for 0-5 year olds and 5 - 12 year olds.
Link for guidelines for physical activity for 0- 5 5-12 year oldsBirthday Blog – Helen – Fabulous Front Desk Team
Why do you love Pilates? I love the way Pilates makes me feel strong. It is such a great way of strengthening the body assisting with posture, body awareness and most importantly, keeping any niggles of pain at bay. Why work at Pottsville and Cabarita Physio? I am lucky in that I work 10 minutes from home and I get to work with such a great team of people. I have personally felt the benefits of Physiotherapy and Pilates and I see the improvements and positive impact that it has on our client’s lives every day, making it a very rewarding job. Best Relaxation tip: Taking a moment each day for yourself. Just stopping to take a few deep breaths, steady your mind and reset/recharge. Best Lifestyle tip: Do things you enjoy and spend time with people you enjoy being with. Favourite activity: Spending time in the kitchen and garden is quite therapeutic for me. I really enjoy cooking for family and friends and just pottering around in the garden. Favourite Recipe: My favourite foods to cook would be Greek or Mediterranean style. I make a delicious slow cooked lamb shoulder – throw the shoulder in the slow cooker with some herbs, spices and lemon and leave to cook for the day. I like to serve it with Cous Cous and a nice leafy Greek style salad. The whole family love it and it’s great for entertaining. A typical Sunday: Sundays for me usually involve a late breakfast, some quality family time and then cooking something yummy for dinner.
Reasons Why Having a Daily Routine is important (for Children AND Adults)!
1. Structure: Having a routine means you can decide what is important to you and create a routine to your day around these things. You can organise your life so it makes sense to you. E.G.- if you prefer to exercise in the morning you can lock in a set time every day for exercise such as 6.30-7.30 and work your morning routine around it. 2. What’s important gets done: you prioritise what is important to you and lock this in first and then fill the spare parts of your diary with the random tasks that pop up in life, rather than running around “putting out fires” or wasting time on other tasks such as social media or watching TV and then not having time left at the end of the day to do what you really want. I often say ‘we all have the same time available to us – it is what we choose to do with it that is different” 3. Good Habits Stick: if we continue to look at exercise as an example, putting exercise in your diary as part of your expected daily activities means you are much more likely to do it regularly and we all know things that we do often quickly become habits. Routine quickly becomes habit because it requires no thought to act. 4. Efficiency: How much time do you waste organising your days, deciding what to and not to do, well if you have a basic weekly routine alot of this decision making is already done for you saving you time and energy and making your life more EFFICIENT. Also there is a lot of talk about decision fatigue – we have so many decisions to make all the time that when the time comes to make important decisions we find it very difficult. It makes sense to work out a routine that suits you so you are not going through the same decision making process every day. A great example I love is wearing a uniform to work – no need to scour the wardrobe every morning wondering what to wear. 5. Saves work: if you do 1 load of washing everyday you won’t be facing an overflowing laundry basket that will take ½ day of your weekend to do 6. Negates the need for willpower or motivation: If it is locked into your daily routine you do it, and as we discussed before things you do often quickly become habits. How often have you set your alarm to go for a walk in the morning only to roll over and turn it off in the morning in favour of a sleep in? If your routine says you exercise at 6.30 everyday you will quickly get in the habit of doing exactly that (after a little initial will power and motivation to get you started) 7. Skills: You get better at what you do often -repetition leads to improvement 8. Relieves stress: many people feel overwhelmed in life with all the jobs that face us everyday especially if you are juggling work, family and other commitments. With a routine you know the important things are getting done. 9. Sleep better: Research shows going to bed at the same time every night and waking at the same time in the morning is one of the most important factors affecting how restorative our sleep is. So lock a bedtime into your routine and stick to it! 10. Children love routine: they have little control in their lives with what they do and when at both home and school so knowing when breakfast is, when we leave for school, bed time etc gives them a little more certainty to their day which in turn makes them less anxious.
Of course your whole life doesn’t have to be a routine – don’t schedule every minute of every day – a little flexibility and spontaneity goes along way. Strike a balance between the two.
Healthy Activities for kids in the holidays
With the growing incidence of obesity in our children and concerns about excessive use of technology and the damage that may be causing, we are often at a loss of what to do with the kids in the holidays. Here is a list of activities that will get them moving, thinking and enjoying!
- Nature art: gather up flowers, sticks, nuts, seeds – anything they can find and make a creation, a collage or you can get fancy and give them a blank canvas or some string to make some dream catchers or art for their wall
- Colouring in: there are so many colouring books on the market, download sheets of the internet or better still a blank piece of paper and let their imaginations flow.
- Make a cubby house: use boxes or a table / tree and sheets
- Baking: cupcakes are always a hit
- Put on their favourite music and have a dance off
- Make an obstacle course (inside or out): cushions, ropes, boxes they can jump over, weave around or crawl through.
- Make ice blocks with fruit and yogurt
- Make orange juice
- Dress ups and theatrical productions (‘plays’)
- But a notebook and get the kids to make a holiday diary
- Write a letter to a friend or grandparent
- Make a kite
- Have a picnic
- Plant a herb garden / vegetable garden
- Blow bubbles
- Press flowers or leaves
- Make a robot out of boxes
- Cut out pictures from old newspapers and magazines and make a collage
- Make a photo book
- Visit the library
- Swim in the creek / ocean
- Collect shells or stones on the beach
- Make a sandcastle
- Go for a bushwalk
- Explore the rocky headlands
- Visit a playground
- Climb a tree
- Look for butterflies or bees in the garden
- Go fishing
- Search for 4 leaf clovers
- Go for a bike ride or scooter
- Make a nature hunt
- Look at the clouds and discover shapes
- Star gaze
- Play board games
- Do a puzzle
- Run under the sprinkler
- Go camping in the backyard
- Visit a farm